


Gently in the Cold Dark Earth/Put His Love Down

by notEriX



Series: All You Have is Your Fire/No Grave Can Hold My Body Down [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Hozier lyrics, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Not Really Character Death, POV Second Person, Torture, but Hadvar doesn't know that, only a little bit at the end there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 03:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18886591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notEriX/pseuds/notEriX
Summary: It is 4E 205, and Hadvar's world is shattered by truly awful news.





	Gently in the Cold Dark Earth/Put His Love Down

**Author's Note:**

> this is in 2nd person (Hadvar) POV because I was a filthy homestuck once upon a time and now can't stop writing in 2nd POV. rip me.
> 
> this is somewhere in the middle of Eleontius's story and takes place a while after the in-game quest 'Diplomatic Immunity'. in the game, the player escapes the Thalmor Embassy unscathed, and there are no real consequences to stealing the information that they have. Eleontius is not so lucky.
> 
> EDIT: I fucking fucked up the year even though I have otherwise been METICULOUS about this timeline. HOW did I manage that???? sighh this happens in 205, not 206. good job, past me.

It’s a hot afternoon in late summer of 205, and you finished up in the courtyard with the newest Auxiliaries a little while ago. You’re fresh from the bath house and headed toward the barracks to write your reports and get some rest when Legate Rikke calls for your attention from halfway across the yard.

Your first clue that something is wrong is the fact that she’s coming toward you at all. You’re only a Captain, there’s no real reason a Legate would come to you directly for anything instead of sending someone else. The second clue is her grave expression. The Legate always looks stern, but right now she looks downright ashen, and her gaze is fixed on you. You wonder what’s happened, that she looks like that. You don’t continue on your course, wait for her to get close to you. You salute, fist to your chest.

“Legate,” you say, but before you can get anything else out she barks her orders.

“To Castle Dour, Captain. The General has words for you.” Your heart sinks in your chest.

Have you done something wrong? You don’t think so, but maybe there’s some code or rule you’ve forgotten? It’s been a good decade since you joined up, something could have changed and now you’ve messed up? You hope not, the Legion is everything to you. Well, aside from your family, and Leon, but you haven’t really spoken with him at length on the matter of— of the both of you. It’s been a while since he left Solitude, and he usually manages to get a letter sent by the two-month mark but he’s probably very busy, what with being the Dragonborn. Dragons have been attacking everywhere more frequently, and he’s the only one who can put them down. But he must be alright; his Voice is stronger than it was even just last year, and he’s a very powerful mage and swordsman.

Shaking yourself out of your thoughts, you follow the Legate into Castle Dour, past Tribunes and Quaestors and dozens of Auxiliaries, and into the war room. General Tullius is bickering with one of the Legates from out east, but when Rikke catches his eye he dismisses them. In fact, he clears his throat to get everyone’s attention, and says, “Clear the room.”

And now you’re _very_ nervous. If you _have_ done something, it’s a grave enough offense for him to reprimand you privately, the better to demote you and maybe even kick you out. Gods, how awful. You wrack your brain, trying to figure out why you’re here as every soldier but you, Legate Rikke, and the General sweeps out of the room. The heavy door is pulled closed from the outside. This is really something they don’t want anyone else to hear. All this just cements your knowledge that something is very, very wrong.

Legate Rikke moves to stand by a low table. “Captain,” General Tullius says, leaning against the war table. He scans the topmost of a stack of letters and sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. What is going on? “Do you know why you’re here, soldier?” The General looks up at you, eyes searching.

“...No, sir.” Tullius flicks his eyes over to Rikke for a moment. “Have I done something wrong, sir?” You’re almost afraid of the answer.

“No,” he says, almost surprised. Relief sweeps through you, but you stifle it quickly. _Something_ is wrong here. You wait for the General to continue. “You are… the only listed next of kin for Quaestor Niirhidor.”

 

What?

 

“What?” Next of kin? Why–?

 

“As you may know,” the General sighs, “on the thirteenth of Sun’s Height earlier this year, the Quaestor left Solitude on an intelligence gathering mission.”

Leon. You don’t know where this is going, but you know you don’t like it.

 _(You do know,_ a little voice in your head whispers, _you do. Next of kin? Months since his last appearance, since the last news of a dragon found dead?)_

General Tullius continues. “The details were kept even from me, but… he gave instructions to implement in the event that he did not return within one month. It has now been two and a half.” No, no. He rifles through the letters, spreading them across the table. “We waited as long as we could, but—”

“No.” You’re distantly aware of the word coming out, of shaking your head. “No. No no, no.” The General continues speaking over you.

“—but we can’t wait any longer. Quaestor Eleontius VII Niirhidor has been declared dead—”

“No, no, no,”

“—as of this day, Sundas, the twenty-fourth of Hearthfire—”

“ _No_ ,” Your knees buckle, you can’t breathe, your eyes itch and you try to cover your face with your hands as the Legate helps you into a chair,

“—I know that the two of you were close—”

 

you love him, you love him,

 

“No, no, please, no, please please Mara no,”

 

The Legate’s hands freeze on your shoulders when you sob out Her name, and you don’t see it but she exchanges a surprised, sorrowful look with General Tullius, having a whole silent conversation over your weeping. You can’t breathe, can’t think, _Leon_ , gods, he can’t be— he can’t be _gone_ . He can’t be, he _can’t_ be,

 

he _is_ and you never _told_ him—

 

“Mara have mercy—”

 

Rikke’s hand rubs circles into your back, between your shoulder blades, in an attempt to be comforting. It just makes you cry harder, because Leon will never touch you again, will never whisper words of comfort between nightmares, you will never hear his voice or his Voice again, you will never see his bright smile or hear his beautiful laugh or watch his eyes light up when he does something he’s proud of. He will never braid your hair again, he will never look at you with that soft expression that he saves only for you, you will never get to bicker with him over something stupid and inconsequential and you will never learn any more about the tiny magical flame that flickers within you, that only he saw.

You have lost your greatest love, the world has lost its last hope and greatest defender and doesn’t even know it.

And the worst, worst thing, is that there is no body, there are no remains, there will be no pire lit upon the peak of the Throat of the World for all Tamriel to see and grieve the loss of a great man, there will be no funeral full of family and friends to remember and mourn him, there will be no grave to visit and speak to and set his favorite flowers upon. For you to join him in.

Eleontius died alone somewhere, and you didn’t even know he was leaving until he was already gone, and you never told him to his face that you love him with your _entire self_ and that you would do anything, anything, anything for him. You would kill for him, you would die for him.

But he’s gone, and the General says something that you don’t hear, and then he and the Legate are gone from the room, and you are alone in your grief as he was alone in his final moments. You cry loud and ugly, and you beg all of the gods in the Nordic Pantheon and even Leon’s beloved Auri-El for him to have an easy, peaceful afterlife, whatever that may be for an elf such as him. You beg, through your grief, for Arkay’s mercy on Eleontius’s behalf.

 

 

 

 

Somewhere close and yet far, in a poorly lit room, bright lightning arcs across a broken body strapped to a table, and a Dragonborn screams for Arkay’s mercy.

**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to comment!


End file.
